Rex had barely finished the syllable before the air itself seemed to rupture.
There was no thunderclap, no dramatic warning of displaced air. Evelyn had bypassed the physical limitations of sound entirely; she had become a phenomenon of pure velocity.
One moment she was twenty paces away, a golden specter amidst the rubble; the next, she was simply there, occupying the space directly in front of Rex's sternum.
Her fist was already a blur of white gold energy, drawn back with the coiled tension of a siege engine. When her knuckles connected with the center of his chest, it wasn't just a punch.
It was a cosmic transaction.
CRACK BOOM.
The Scales of Retribution activated with terrifying, mathematical precision. In that singular microsecond, the universe balanced the ledger.
Every ounce of agony she had endured in the last hour, every violation of her flesh, was forcibly extracted from her body and detonated inside his.
The recoil was instantaneous and catastrophic.
